THE MATRIX: JACKED IN
by WarlordJEREK
Summary: The continuation of the Matrix storyline as written by me. Neo thought that he had ended it. He thought the fight was over. But it had just begun.


CHAPTER ONE: RESUMPTION

The door opened.

Through the door he flew into a pool of light that was like a sun inside of his Mind's Eye. Then the tunnel appeared. The tunnel's darkness contrasted with the light like the ugliness of a moth sitting on a flower to the beautiful butterfly sitting on the same flower. This made it seem like more of a black hole then a tunnel. He entered the hole, flying through it like a speeding bullet on high.

The tunnel's direction suddenly shifted.

Now he was flying downward, deeper and deeper into darkness. Then as he looked around, he saw the lines of code that had begun to form on the sides of the walls of the hole. But they weren't green like usual. No, they were a bright scarlet, as if the Matrix was bleeding. The code wasn't actually in the sides of the hole, they were actually through the long rectangular spaces that had scratched themselves on the sides of the hole. At the bottom of the shift in the hole's direction, there was a swirling vortex of blue like a whirlpool of pure energy.

Into the swirling mass of blue light he traveled.

And out the out the other side he came.

Into a room of white he was.

Wondering if he was still sane.

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The room was so white it blinded Neo for a minute before he could open his eyes and look at it with his eyes wide open. His hair had resumed its fixed-up shape instead of the messy one that it had assumed during the fight with Smith.

Wait a minute…

Smith.

He'd fought Smith.

And he'd….

Won?

No. But he didn't lose because he couldn't feel Smith there anymore. So what had happened to him? The last thing that Neo could remember before Smith copied himself into him was….

Was coldness.  
Like death crawling up his back. That was the copying method that Smith was using against Neo. Then the last thing that he remembered before couldn't feel Smith there anymore was….

Nothing. Only blankness. Darkness. His mind had been blinded by Smith just as his eyes had been blinded by Smith. But the only difference was the darkness. So much darkness. As if the shadows of his brain had consumed him. That cold feeling of death crawling up his back all around him like a hurricane of death and ice. Stinging his eyes. Erasing his mind…

Neo tried not to think of it. He only tried to think of where he was. Since he was in a white room he could be in the back door portal again. No. That's not where he was. Otherwise there'd be long stretches of doors on either side of him, and there was nothing but white here. Nothing at all.

_So where am I?_

Then Neo remembered something. Something that dwelled at the farthest reaches of the back of his mind like a paradise lost in the sweltering heat and sands of a ruthless and merciless dessert. It was something that he remembered from far back, it seemed. As if it were something he'd experienced a thousand years ago, before this whole war started, before any AI was developed.

The first time Neo had been jacked in via the hole in his skull, Neo had been taken to a virtual white room. Where Morpheus showed him the truth, explained his situation, before he even knew who he was.

That was where Neo thought he was. It was the best theory that he'd developed.

"That's correct," said a deep voice from behind him. Neo turned around to see that there was nothing there. The voice was coming from somewhere within the walls of the room. Neo was confused. More so then when he'd first entered this room, which he didn't even know was possible since there was so much he'd discovered in the time that he'd been awakened.

"What are you?" Neo asked whatever was speaking to him.

"Remember what the Oracle told you about in her second visit with her about programs?" the thing said.

Neo remembered and knew what this thing was.

"You're an exiled program?"

"Yes, just like the ones you met at the train station. You can refer to me as the Ghost in the Machine," the Ghost in the Machine said. "I'm a program that has completely broken away from the Matrix's systematic control of programs. I can move freely throughout all aspects of the Matrix, even through the region's which others, not even you Neo, or the Oracle, cannot," said the Ghost in the Machine.

"So, where'd you come from?" Neo said.

"Well, I guess you could call me the Orphaned child of the Architect," said the Ghost.

"The Architect?" said Neo with confusion.

"Yes. When he first designed and created the Matrix and the programs that govern all things in it, he wanted to have power over any aspects that may, and did, soon change in it. So he decided to take a program that was of the least importance to the Matrix, and change it into a program that he could control to enter any un-enterable rooms. To unlock any locked doors. But that was when he made the mistake that all things with too much control eventually make," the Ghost in the Machine said.

"What?" Neo asked, actually anxious.

"He accidentally chose something that caused the downfall of the original Matrix. The Peace Program he had developed. That was what caused every human mind in the Matrix to began fighting and that was what caused the ultimate downfall and destruction of the original Matrix and the creation that ultimately resulted in the final draft, if you will, of the last chapter of the Architect's magnum opus called the Matrix. That was what created me. Now, ask me your next question," said the Ghost.

"What happened to me?"

"Smith tried to copy himself into you. He tried to end it all. He tried everything in his power to destroy everything that you and the entire race of people of Zion had worked for. But something happened," the Ghost explained.

"What happened?"

"You did, Neo. You're will to be free and to free others to be more accurate. And that was what destroyed you're Smith copy. Now that will transferred throughout the other Smiths through the original Smith, because of the strange tie that you and him shared. Once that tie was severed, it destroyed every last thing Smith had changed inside of the Matrix. And it eventually freed everyone from the machine's rampage. That ultimately changed the entire Matrix for the final time," said the Ghost.

"Then why aren't I dead?"

"Because, Neo. As I said it was only you're Smith version of you're mind that was destroyed. All of the other Smith's, their original beings returned, except for the Agent Smiths, they were destroyed along with Smith himself because of the connection that they also shared with Smith. Have I clarified everything for you?" the Ghost explained, making Neo understand finally.

"Not everything. Why am I here?" Neo asked.

"Because you're usefulness has not been worn out just yet," said the Ghost.

The conversation reminded Neo of the first time he spoke with the Oracle.

Almost as if this was a new beginning.

Almost as if he'd been reborn.


End file.
